The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Chapter 5: Celestia

I watch my sisters play Catch the Goose in the garden through the window of the room I share with Sibilia. Even though the sun has reclaimed its brightness, the lake is still covered with translucent gray ice that the slowly warming days haven’t yet managed to melt. Here, behind the Moon’s back, winter lasts long, spring is feeble, and summer comes only when all hope is lost. This is the time of the year when my people starve, when my aviating kin freeze from their feet to shallow waters. And yet, as Elise, Merile, and Alina run down the slippery paths, they look happier than they have been in weeks, if not for months.

It is curious how soon people get accustomed to new circumstances. Even though my sisters and I have been through some hardship, it is nothing compared to that which my people must suffer in the inevitable aftermath of Gagargi Prataslav’s coup. I am certain he has exerted his wrath upon those loyal to my family, regardless of rank and personage, age or gender. I know this is just the beginning. Once the initial resistance has been crushed, he will start enforcing his rules upon my people, state new laws and put them into action. The cost of that will not be light.

Outside, Elise the goose catches Alina, lifts her up, and spins her around. Though glass and distance stand between us, I know that my little sister squeals with glee. A year ago this time, she wouldn’t have been considered a full human yet. If the law the gagargi has in his mind had been in place then, he would no doubt have demanded that she be fed to the Great Thinking Machine, to fuel the mechanical creation that tirelessly crunches through numbers and instructions to distribute every resource available equally to all corners of the empire.

It is insanity, the equal redistribution of resources a logistical impossibility. The gagargi’s promises may sound good in the ears of those who feel oppressed by the way the world works. But taking something one’s family has possessed and cherished for centuries, dividing lands and property earned by hard work, sending one’s fathers and mothers and sons and daughters to the other side of the empire because the machine so decides, will bring only mayhem in its wake, not the time of plenty.

I can’t let this happen to my people.

Neither this idea of equal redistribution of resources nor the law he plans on setting in place to fuel his foul machine comes from my father, regardless of what the gagargi might insist. I know by heart every single line of the holy scriptures. Our souls anchor to our bodies at the age of six, when we announce our names for the first time. But that doesn’t mean that it would be by any means right to extract souls from children younger than that. For I remember knowing my name already before my sixth name day. Elise knew hers before as well. She whispered it to me, boldly, accompanied with a smile. The thought of the gagargi going through with his plan, of enforcing the law to tax every other child, chills me more than what he did to me.

I lost a part of my soul. I may not ever be able to bear children. I will never fly again.

The hollow of my stomach aches as I lean against the windowsill, my palms flat against the cool, white stone. Even after three months, sometimes I still wake up to blood dripping through my nightgown, occurrences Sibilia has noticed, but hasn’t dared to ask about—I must make sure she doesn’t mention them to anyone, not even Elise. But even more frighteningly, I find myself thinking that I should have let the gagargi’s seed grow into a baby. Residues of the spell he imposed on me still linger behind. Perhaps it is because I couldn’t fully reclaim my soul, because in my body dwells now the soul of a swan he killed on the night of the coup.

Be it as it may, considering everything that unfolded after that night, what happened to my soul and my body doesn’t matter. An empress must place her empire above her own needs, and at this point, my people are the ones who have suffered the most, and will continue to do so. I don’t need Elise to tell me that too much blood has been shed already, that if the fields aren’t plowed in time, if the mines don’t remain open and the factories productive, our people will soon perish of starvation, exposure, and poverty. I have no right to feel sad for the demise of my mother or my seed, for blood spilled on the palace floor or trampled on dirty snow. That is a luxury that I am not entitled to. Not anymore.

A magpie, a bird blessed by my father, lands on the other side of the glass, and I think it might be the same one that has been watching our dance practices lately. Its charcoal gray beak parts, but the pane between us prevents me from hearing the croaks. I tap the glass with my forefinger, but the bird is bold. It cants its black head toward the garden where my sisters play under the half-watchful eyes of Captain Janlav and Boy. The wind tugs at the hair of my younger sisters, and yet they beam with smiles. Merile’s lean dogs bounce from one girl to another, the silver-black dog slightly faster than the copper brown one. They could run for miles and miles without tiring. But my sisters and I, we can’t, not even after months of building up our stamina with the daily dance practices.

“My sisters trust in me,” I say aloud, for words spoken have always borne more weight than those said idly in one’s mind.

There is no one around to hear me but the magpie. The door of the room I share with Sibilia is closed. Now that it is finally warm enough to spend time outside, the guards take full advantage of this. I can see Beard and Belly and Tabard and Boots smoking cigarettes on what will be untended lawn come summer. “I will not fail them again.”

Ever since my seed’s demise, I have been working on a new plan. Given the information and resources available to me, this new plan is not as refined as my previous one, and I consider it riskier by a wide margin. But it would be more dangerous to stay here, in this house that was built here for one and one purpose only, to isolate those deemed dangerous, but perhaps one day useful, from the rest of the empire, with no letters ever reaching them, no hawks knowing the way. When the gagargi summons me, and summon me he surely will, my sisters and I must be long gone, even if it is by foot, through the wilderness that bears no other name than that sung by swans when they compare the most favorable routes across the empire that one day still will be mine. It will be mine, and under my rule it shall be as great as it ever was under my mother’s rule.

The magpie taps at the glass with its beak, three clicks too regular for them to be a coincidence. I meet the beady gaze of this curious bird. A thought comes to me, one that may or may not prove to be a significant realization. There is a grain of salt in some stories. “Are you sent by my father?”

My swan-self knows the way through the wilderness, to the Southern Colonies that the gagargi has ever despised. Even though I can’t know it for certain, I believe that there my sisters would be safe. The southern rulers and princes yearn for things only I can promise: a child conceived together—though this might remain but a promise—tax alleviations for a negotiable period of time. I am even willing to consider granting them autonomy, provided they agree to protect my sisters and support my campaign to reclaim my throne. This magpie could be a herald of my father, a confirmation for this plan, one I would much cherish.

The magpie taps at the glass again, twice this time. Then it takes off, blue and white wings beating slowly, the long, black tail glistening. I don’t know if this constitutes a yes or no or neither. I do know that I am desperate enough to leave this house, that my plan is so feeble still, that I am ready to welcome help in any shape or form that it might arrive.

Even so I am not foolish enough to rely on my father providing us sustenance on our daring journey to come. Regardless of what old stories may say, his light doesn’t fill one’s stomach. Otherwise my people would have never starved and turned against my family.

I glance once more at the closed door before I march to the massive wardrobe that takes up the whole corner to my right. My swan-self still remembers every flavor of the winds, the rain hiding behind the clouds, the frost that sometimes follows the warmer days. If it weren’t for her, I would have ordered my sisters on the road already, doomed them to a grueling journey that might have led us no place better. But as soon as my swan-self announces the weather safe, my sisters and I will depart the house.

I slowly pull open the wardrobe’s door, so that the verdigris-stained hinges don’t make a sound, and move aside the meager collection of clothes hanging there, the dresses that my mother’s sisters once wore, moth-eaten garments with frayed lace hems that used to be in fashion years and years ago. They made alterations in them, though. The deceitful creatures tried to imagine how life in the palaces went on without them. Perhaps they, too, entertained the idea of returning to the place that once was their home.

I do wonder at times how the Summer City has changed in my absence. Has the gagargi torn down the statues representing the past empresses? I am sure he never ordered one to commemorate mother. Has he relocated his horrid machine from his island to the palace’s great hall as he once said he would do? Does he extract the souls of my supporters in public ceremonies, to make examples out of them?

I push the clothes aside, tap the corners of the back panel one after another, in clockwise direction. I wait for the soft click and then slide the panel aside. This is the third secret compartment I found while searching through the areas of the house that are accessible to us. Though I have tapped through every wall and patted every cushion, though I have run my hand over every decorative knob and inlay in search of hidden levers and switches, I didn’t find what I was looking for. It is too well hidden.

In the secret compartment, my collection of supplies rests untouched. It took me weeks to secure the suitable tin boxes. The blue and silver one is already full of biscuits—hard, dry things meant for the guards’ provisions when they travel to the garrison and back. The men don’t like the taste, aren’t hungry enough to touch them, and often leave them carelessly lying around the house. I flip open the lid of the light green box that once held the sewing kit. There is still space for more rye bread. I shall have to grow bolder, though this will increase the risk of someone in addition to Elise noticing me stealing food.

The flint lies on top of the canteen, next to the tin boxes. Yesterday, when Beard chastised Boy for losing them, I was certain they would realize that neither of them was to blame. In the end, they didn’t, but it was too close of a call for my comfort. I will not snatch more equipment from the guards. Praised be my father that, according to my swan soul, the rivers and rivulets are clean here and teeming with fish.

The footsteps are silent, the low screech of the door opening barely audible. But I hear them because I never allow myself to slip too deep in my thoughts.

I am on my knees, half inside the wardrobe. I don’t have time to close the tin box, let alone slide the panel back. I collect myself, though, before I back out and turn and see who has entered the room. For if it is one of the guards…

It is not, the Moon be blessed. Sibilia stands in the doorway, and though she cradles the book of scriptures against her chest, as she so often does, there is something very frightening about her. Gone is the daydreaming, awkward girl. Before me stands a woman whose red-gold hair gleams even though the lamps in the room are unlit. Her face is pale, her freckles like scattered embers. But it is her gray gaze, wide and intense, and it is as if… No, not as if.

My sister sees through me.

“Celestia,” Sibilia says, pushing the door closed behind her. “Tell me the truth.”

For a moment, I am too shocked to speak, let alone get up from the floor. I have kept many secrets from her. I don’t know what truths she has managed to uncover on her own—all of them or only one?

“What do you wish to know?” I ask, for I never expected my sisters forever refrain from asking questions.

Sibilia strides toward me, and there is nothing clumsy in the way she moves. There is but pure determination and unsated hunger as she halts three steps away from me. “Tell me, what happened to Mother’s sisters.”

That one, then. Even though I am not yet the empress, my control over my mind is fitting for one. I rise on my feet, to face my sister. Has Elise told Sibilia about mother’s sisters, about their plans, their fate? If she has, what are her motives?

I meet Sibilia’s sharp, gray gaze. No, even though Elise and Sibilia are close, Elise hasn’t told her about the bullet holes in the cellar. She knows some things have been kept secret for a reason. Sibilia’s thirst for knowledge stems from a different source, from a spell, I sense it now.

“What do you mean?” I need just a little more time to evaluate the best course of action. Where does this spell originate from? Who is behind it? How is it powered? Surely not by a gagargi!

“You know what I mean.” Sibilia advances toward me until nothing separates us but a paper-thin slice of air. Her gaze is almost level with mine. She has grown tall, as if she had stretched during the winter months, and I wonder, what else has come to pass before my eyes without me noticing. And then I know it and chastise myself for not realizing it sooner.

This spell is not of any gagargi’s handiwork. The days my sister has spent with the scriptures, they have yielded fruit. She has learned to read the words unwritten, the spells that the gagargis so jealously guard. A feat I never accomplished, though not for the lack of trying.

“Who are Irina and Olesia?”

I am proud of my sister, but my posture stays unchanged, expression unwavering. For those names… I haven’t seen or heard them said since the day my mother summoned her younger sisters into the sacred observatory, there to hear their feeble pleas only out of kindness before she ordered them exiled and their names obliterated from all official and unofficial records. Now my sister stands before me, demanding to know what I might have done in my mother’s place. But there are benefits in ignorance, pain in knowledge. “Irina and Olesia?”

Sibilia snorts. Her nostrils flare. She senses that I am not telling her everything. This spell of hers, could it really be… Yes, it must be, a truth spell. She will sense if I lie.

I say what is true from every measurable angle. “It is a long time since I last heard those names.”

Sibilia stomps the ground, dissatisfied with the answer. But before I speak more, I must know for certain that there is no one else around. My senses have grown precise indeed in this house. I have trained myself to recognize every creak of the stairs and floor planks, the wail of every hinge. I hearken my senses, but I hear no sounds that would betray someone moving around the drawing room, suppressed sighs that come from holding one’s breath for too long. I don’t like breaking eye contact with Sibilia, but that is what I must do to confirm my conclusion. The guards are still outside, in the sun, as are Elise, Merile, and Alina. Sibilia and I have a moment or two to speak of things that then must not be ever voiced again.

“Shall we take a seat?” I motion toward the bed that we share at nights, when we are close but far apart still. Let my sister agree to sit down with me, for I doubt she knows what she is fueling her spell with. Sooner or later it will abandon her and leave her weak and confused, momentarily drained of a part of her own soul. “No doubt, you have many more questions to ask.”

Sibilia blinks, and a veil of confusion clouds her eyes. Then it is gone, and back is the burning thirst. “A trick, perhaps? No, you wouldn’t trick your own sister. Or would you? I really think not. Yes. Let’s sit down.”

And so I gain myself a few precious seconds to think of what to tell. The truth, yes, but truth has many flavors, some more bitter than others. My sister deserves some version of the events. Back at the Summer Palace, during the train journey, she was still a child, and I under an obligation to protect her from the information that would only hurt her. Now she is but two months, three weeks, and four days away from her debut, from the rite of passage that marks her an adult. Perhaps the time has already come to treat her as one.

I speak in a low voice only when we both perch on the bed’s edge, the book of scriptures between us a neutral ground that neither can occupy without breaching peace. “They were our mother’s younger sisters.”

Sibilia clings to every word, holding her breath, and it is as if the house, too, were listening to us. It occurs to me that I might have made a grave mistake in immersing myself in my plans, by considering only the guards and the gagargi as a threat. I have failed to take into account the other parties that may yet become involved.

“And what happened to them?” Sibilia asks, and at that moment I am certain that she has never really heard of them. But that can’t be it. How would she have then known their names, something even Elise is too young to remember!

“They plotted to assassinate our mother,” I reply, even as I wonder from which source my sister’s knowledge stems. There is but one way to find out. I must tell her more and read from her reactions how much she really knows. “They acquired a swan soul and sweet-talked a talented young gagargi into their service. It was only at the last moment that our mother learned of their plan and put an end to it.”

A family secret that soon became a state secret. I was taught to forget mother’s sisters, and it was by no means a difficult feat to accomplish with their names forbidden in conversations that steered around their absence, their faces skillfully altered in portraits to resemble no one at all, their friends and allies silenced with unsaid threats and punishments so terrible that any grain of loyalty still lingering in their bones withered willingly away. Only now, I realize that their fate could have been mine, even though I did not and I will not betray my sisters.

But in conspiring with the gagargi and plotting a coup together with him, even if I was under his spell, I did betray my mother. That night, there was so little time, and the guards escorted my sisters to the observatory before I had a chance to explain that I had merely intended to seek the gagargi’s counsel, nothing more. Though she forgave me, sealed this with one last kiss pressed on my forehead, I am sure she went to her grave thinking I was behind the coup. I can only wish that our father has revealed her the truth.

“Would-be murderers then?” Sibilia nods to herself, seemingly satisfied for a moment at least. But I have to ask myself: is she still on my side? How much can I trust her, or any of my sisters for that matter? These are ghastly questions, but ones every empress must consider, regardless of how fond they are of their sisters. Questions that my mother no doubt asked herself.

“What do you do when your sisters plot your downfall?” I ask her as much as myself. If the world had turned out differently, if it weren’t for the gagargi and his machine, my sisters might have eventually conspired against me in lust for more power. Now I know they won’t. If I have to be grateful for one thing, the gagargi’s actions have resulted in that. “She could have ordered them shot. Empresses of the past have done so more than once. But they were her sisters. She loved them, despite their betrayal.”

Sibilia stares blankly ahead. No, not blankly, but at the oval mirror above the vanity desk. She isn’t interested in her reflection. It is as if she is hoping to see more, but what? Surely not into the world beyond this one.

And then I know the answer. Ghosts can gaze into this world through reflecting surfaces.

I say, as much to those who might be watching us as to my sister, “Instead, our mother sent them here, into a house built so far away that any plot conceived could be stopped in time.”

Even without Millie’s confession, there was so much evidence, my mother told me after the guards had escorted Irina and Olesia away. The young gagargi cracked under the truth spell that mother’s advisors enforced on him. Come next full moon, her sisters would have poisoned mother with arsenic. Irina, as the older one of them, would have married the Moon. But even though the guards searched the palace from attic to cellar three times, the swan soul bead the sisters had acquired was never found. And that might yet turn out to be a blessing. Knowing the cunning of mother’s sisters, I am certain they smuggled it with them here, even if I haven’t been able to locate it yet.

Sibilia nods at her reflection, satisfied with what I have told her so far, if not by what she saw. “When you were still under the gagargi’s spell, you wanted to send me, Elise, Merile, and Alina here.”

She has grown indeed, for this I haven’t told her either. It was originally the gagargi’s plan. But it was I who decided that we should all come here—that night in the sacred observatory, it was the best course of action. Though, back then, I didn’t know what he had in mind for my mother’s sisters. Had I known, I don’t know how I would have chosen.

“It’s not as safe here as you thought it would be,” Sibilia continues in a voice too deep, too old.

I think of the bullet holes in the cellar, the ones Elise so vividly described that even though I haven’t seen them myself, I can feel them under my fingers as I brush the worn velvet coverlet. I don’t know if one of mother’s gagargis cast a spell on me, to make me forget Irina and Olesia even faster. I was only nine when they were exiled. But now I suddenly recall things I haven’t thought of in years. My nostrils fill with their perfume, white midsummer roses in bloom covering the bitter scent of cigarettes. I taste the hard, colorful candies they always carried around in their purses. My ears lock and pop. My heart pounds too loud.

Sibilia pokes my shoulder as if nothing had changed. “So, what’s the plan?”

I must be present, with her. I can’t think of what the past meant to me or what the coming days may bring in their wake. My sisters rely on me to find a way to leave this house, and leave this house I must, for my empire is torn asunder and my people suffer in the throes of a civil war. But only a secret untold is safe.

“Tell me,” Sibilia commands, playfulness gone from her tone.

I know it then: if I don’t tell her, I will put us even more at risk, even if a careless slip of tongue could ruin the plan beyond recovery. For it is clear now that though their bodies have bled dry, the souls and shadows of my mother’s sisters still remain behind and haunt this house. They distrust me as I am… will be the empress. If given half the reason, half the chance, they will sow seeds of distrust amongst my sisters, and this will then endanger so much more than the escape plan.

I face the mirror and speak as much to the ghosts of Irina and Olesia—if they indeed are present—as to my sister who sits beside me in the flesh. I shall tell them what awaits us. “We will flee on foot to the south. If we leave at midnight, that will give us from six to eight hours of head start before the guards notice us gone. If we walk through the night and the following day, down the streams and rivulets, by the time the guards reach Captain Ansalov, his hounds may not be able to determine our path.”

Sibilia nods to herself. “They will think we’ve headed toward the Summer Palace, that you are intent on reclaiming the empire as your first action.”

My sister is no longer a silly girl, but a woman of reason. Though, relying on the guards to draw the right conclusion without carefully scattered hints would be to count on luck too much. Toward this end, I have composed a letter that I will leave for Millie to find. She will give in under pressure, before the guards have to resort to more than threats. She has done so once in her life already.

This, I can’t share with Sibilia. Irina and Olesia were fond of Millie. They wouldn’t approve of me using her. But I consider this as Millie’s chance to redeem herself in our father’s eyes.

“You mentioned ‘we.’” Sibilia squints her eyes, rubs her forehead. The spell is fading, and she senses it. She can have but a question or two left to ask before she has spent all that her soul can spare. “What’s the definition of ‘we’?”

Mother once said that each difficult decision will carve a hollow under my heart. I feel it now, the emptiness that tugs at my lowest ribs. Does my sister know? How could she? I never shared that part of my previous plan with anyone, and I don’t like being reminded of what I might have been willing to do. “All of us.”

Sibilia shakes her head. “No, I wasn’t sure earlier, but now I am. You’re holding back information. Tell me what it is.”

I can see from her widening pupils that she isn’t quite in control of the spell anymore. As she reaches toward me, to grab my shoulders, the compulsion hooks into the cogs and wheels of my mind. It is a feeling that…

After being subject to a harmful spell before, I should be repulsed. Afraid. But instead, I am proud of my sister and what she has achieved on her own. Proud enough that if it had been my choice, I might have told her the truth without the spell’s interference. But now, it isn’t my choice. “The previous plan.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” Sibilia kisses my forehead, tears streaming down her cheeks. My mind was tampered with not so long ago, to coerce me into actions I wouldn’t otherwise have agreed to. In my sister’s eyes, she has hurt me in the worst possible way. “I didn’t mean to really use it. I… I can’t take it back.”

And I wish I could take back the words that I hear myself saying. “That day my seed came to our aid, I chose you to remain behind with me.”

Sibilia draws away from me. She stares at me, unable to comprehend what I am talking about. No, that isn’t it. Unwilling to comprehend.

“There was but one troika…” Out of control now, the spell seeks firmer hold of my mind. Images of the day my seed met his end flash past my eyes. The sun clinging to the zenith. The waiting horses tied to the wooden rail. It seemed like such an easy choice then. When I saw that my seed had brought but one troika with him, with the future of the empire at stake, I realized I could send only three of my sisters away to safety. At that instant, I had to decide who would stay behind and face the grim consequences with me. That role fell on Sibilia.

But now that I have slept next to Sibilia, now that I have heard of her hopes and dreams, I do regret ever making that choice that in the end didn’t matter. “I would have ordered him to leave with Elise, Merile, and Alina.”

“You were…” The hurt in my sister’s voice is primal. Though an empress should never be guided by her heart, my sister’s pain makes me regret what I thought back then—what I knew—as the best course of action. “You were going to leave me behind.”

I focus my mind on one word and one word only. It took my father’s help to break through Gagargi Prataslav’s compulsion. But my sister’s spell isn’t as intricate. What I need is a breach, one word through the spell. One simple word. “No.”

“You were going to leave me behind,” Sibilia repeats, blinking slowly as if she weren’t seeing properly anymore. She shakes her head, and her faith in me leaks out with the tears. I, her honored eldest sister… in her eyes, I am that no more, but a calculating empress-to-be. “You were…”

“Listen to me, Sibilia, it was the only possible choice.” And even with her spell cast aside, I hide nothing more from her. I don’t want my sister thinking I wanted the events to veer to that direction. “This empire needs a future, and weak and bleeding, I chose Elise before myself. And our little sisters, dear Alina and Merile, they rely on our protection. Tell me, how would you have chosen?”

But Sibilia doesn’t hear me anymore. She gropes for the book of scriptures, holds it against her chest, slumps against the pillows. “Abandon me…”

I rush to help her onto her back, though her accusing gaze stabs me like hunter’s knives. I have seen spells invoked many times before. When not powered by a soul bead, the gagargis draw from their own souls. My sister has come upon this knowledge on her own. This might be the very first spell she has ever invoked.

“It never came to pass,” I whisper as I tug the coverlet over her, to keep her warm. She shifts waveringly, yearns for me to leave her alone. But I sit down on the bed’s edge, next to her. “My sister, it is all right now.”

“Is it?” she mumbles, wounded by more than the secrets uncovered. Her spell has faded and left her weak. I hope it hasn’t harmed her soul permanently. “Celestia…”

I gently brush my sister’s wet cheeks, dab the tears away with my sleeve. Even though her body is that of an adult, deep inside she is still but a girl, prone to be afraid and confused. For a reason, though.

I lean to speak softly in her ear, though I know the hurt I have caused her may not ever mend. “We will go to the south together. All together or not at all.”

She grows too weary to say more. Her eyes keep open only barely, but the piercing gray sadness is unmistakable. As her breathing deepens, I hold her hand in mine. It is no longer plump, but delicate. She has changed. I haven’t, for I am already as I must be.

I sit by her side, until I am certain she will not stir to the sounds I might make. I glance at the mirror. I am not yet the Crescent Empress. I don’t see into the world beyond this one. My expression is unreadable as I get up and glide to the vanity desk.

Swiftly, I cover the mirror with my shawl. What the ghosts can’t see, they can’t tattle onward. I return to Sibilia, and I carefully pry the book of scriptures from her sleepy fingers.

I turn the pages and read the first unsteady line. It gives me no pleasure to break the trust that my sister has placed in me. But in this house, I can’t afford to let her keep secrets from me. If we want to survive, I must know everything.

I must know who has been talking with Irina and Olesia.